6 Pounds

Just a quick update. Aimee is now 6 pounds 2 ounces. She's getting big. 4 more ounces until she has tripled her birth weight. She goes to the pediatrician weekly for weight checks. 

Her sodium is low again so she has to take sodium by mouth 3x a day. She has to go for blood work on Saturday morning to see how her sodium levels are. I hope they are going up. 

She continues to have eye appointments every 2 weeks. There still isn't any change so that is good. 

Laying on her play mat. This is a 7 pound onesie and it is actually a little small on her.

Licking her toy

Aimee's first picture with Santa

Sticking her tongue out at me

Photo Shoot

Here is a link to my Facebook album with the pictures from Aimee's photo shoot last week. There are too many to upload them all here.

Aimee's Photo Shoot

Due Date/Neonatal Follow-Up

Yesterday was my due date. Aimee had her first neonatal follow-up appointment at McMaster. The doctor seemed surprised with how well she is doing. She was amazed at how alert Aimee is and how well she can hold her head up. She said that by next time we come in (on February 21, 2013) Aimee will be rolling onto her side and holding her head up much better (although she holds it really good now). Just after she said that, Aimee almost rolled onto her side and the doctor was like "oh, it looks like she's trying to do it now."

Aimee weighed 5 pounds 12 ounces and is 17 ¾ inches long. She gained 7 ounces in a week.

Aimee also had an eye appointment yesterday and also had to get blood work done. The eye appointment went good, there is no change since her last one 2 weeks ago. She has to go back in 2 weeks again. Hopefully, if there is no change after that one then we won't have to keep going back. She had to go back to the Cambridge Hospital for her blood work yesterday afternoon. When she got discharged from the hospital, the doctor took her off sodium and wanted to see if her sodium was still good or if she has to go back on the oral sodium. She currently takes iron and vitamin D daily.

Here are a whole bunch of pictures.

Sitting with mommy

At her first doctor's appointment last week

I love all the different faces she makes

Sticking her tongue out

Fast asleep

I sat her down in the car seat for a minute and she fell asleep

She learned how to suck her thumb this week

Getting burped by daddy

Smiling at me

Yesterday she figured out how to hold onto her soother. She kept pulling it out of her mouth and waving it around.

Not so happy this morning

Just laying around

She keeps trying to hold the bottle when I am feeding her

I set up her play mat on Wednesday. She's too small to reach the toys but she likes to look at them.

Home

Aimee came home last Monday (November 5) after 62 days in the hospital. I was told the Friday before that they wanted to make sure she continued to take all of her bottles over the weekend and they wanted to see about her getting her RSV shot and she could possibly come home Monday. She also had to do car seat trending, where they sit her in her car seat for 60 minutes and make sure her oxygen saturation doesn't drop below 88.

Car seat trending was one of the times during her hospital stay that I was most anxious. I didn't even want to stay at the hospital while she was doing it. The room I was staying in with Aimee was right outside the nursery and I could frequently hear monitors going off. If I had stayed in there and heard it, I would have been a nervous wreck for an hour. We decided to leave and get a coffee while she was doing it. By the time we came back, about 40 minutes later, she was still going and the nurses said that she hadn't made a sound (at which point she decided to make some sounds). 20 more minutes went by and she passed. We were so happy.

Monday morning comes and I am waiting for the doctor to come and talk to me. We were hoping but not expecting her to come home. He came to talk to me around 9am. He took a look at Aimee and asked how I thought she did over the weekend. After about 10 minutes, he finally said the words we had been waiting to hear "you can take your baby home." I don't think I have ever been so happy in my life.

She had a doctor's appointment on Thursday to check how she is doing after being discharged. She had gained weight and seems to be doing well. She has her first neonatal follow-up appointment this Thursday (November 15) as well as an eye exam. She has quite a few neonatal appointments over the next 2 years because she was born under 1500 grams (quite a bit under, she was only 960).

The picture at the top was from a photo shoot we got done last Thursday. Sylvia Pond is an awesome photographer and I definitely recommend her to anyone in the Kitchener/Waterloo region looking for a photographer. She was very good with Aimee. I can't wait to see the rest of the pictures. She also had a contest on her Facebook page for tickets to the Stork and Stroller show in Kitchener next Sunday and Mike won. I am going and Mike and Aimee are going to spend the day at home together.

Doing car seat trending

The nurses put this on her bassinet the day before she came home.

Sitting in the front entrance of the hospital while daddy pulled the van up

First change at home

Sitting with mommy at home.

No More Incubator

As of Monday the 22nd, Aimée is no longer in her incubator. She spends her days bundled up in nice warm blankets waiting to be cuddled by her mommy and daddy. She is now 4 pounds and 13 ounces and is working very hard to get all her feeds by bottle (60 ml). Once she has the bottles down she has to do a car seat trend test and then will be able to come home!

   Aimée's new digs!

Cuddling with her Daddy

Cant forget about Mommy

Aimée's room is also just about done just need to get some more storage for all the clothes everyone keeps buying her.

Hopefully the next update will be all about Aimée's big arrival at home.

4 Pounds

Aimee is now 4 pounds. 4 more ounces and she will have doubled her birth weight. She now eats between 48 and 52 mL every 3 hours. She is now allowed to have up to 3 bottles per day. Hopefully that helps her learn how to drink from the bottle faster.

They discontinued her caffeine and human milk fortifier today. Once she is off caffeine for 5 days, she will be able to come off all the monitors.

Bath/Bottle/Eye Exam

Yesterday they showed us how to give Aimee a bath. She was surprisingly a lot more calm than we thought she was going to be. She cried a bit, but when the nurse put her in the water and was splashing water over her, she calmed down. She didn't seem to like it when the nurse washed her hair. Her next bath, we should get to do. 

She did good with the bottle yesterday. She got 19 mL out of it before she decided that was enough and went to sleep. The other 16 mL had to be fed through the tube. She knows how to drink out of the bottle, but she hasn't quite learned how to breathe properly while eating. She stops eating and will breathe fast for a few seconds and then go back to eating. The nurse said that's normal. She hasn't quite got suck/swallow/breathe yet. The nurse yesterday said that babies sometimes don't fully get that until 37 weeks. Aimee is just about 35 weeks. That is the number of weeks pregnant I would have been had I still been pregnant. 

Aimee went for her first eye exam this morning. Mike called a little while ago and they said she is back and everything looked ok. I am sure I will get more information when I go visit her in a couple of hours. I will update later today or tomorrow with that information. They are doing a follow-up eye appointment next Tuesday. 

As of yesterday, Aimee was 3 pounds 11.5 ounces. 8.5 more ounces until she has doubled her birth weight. She's getting a chubby little belly. She is also getting very long. I was going to buy some sleepers and onesies off someone that are 3-5 pounds, but because she is growing so fast I decided not to. Her feet are pretty much right at the end of these sleepers so if she keeps getting so long and growing so fast she will be into the 5 pound sleepers pretty soon. It's much easier to find those in stores than 3-5 pound. 

Aimee is 5 weeks old today. 

Her first matching outfit

After her bath

Holding her after her bath and feed

Sunday October 7

Aimee is growing a lot this week. She is up to 3 pounds 9.5 ounces. She gained 6.5 ounces in the last week. The bottle feeding is going ok, she is starting to get it a bit. This morning she took 13 ounces by bottle and had the other 16 by tube.

Grandma (Rena's mom) holding Aimee for the first time

Aunt Denise holding Aimee for the first time